Pilot's Body Found After Crash

Wisconsin Man, 91, Wife Killed On Alabama Mountain

May 01, 1995|By Steve Mills, Tribune Staff Writer.

It was a career that nearly spanned aviation itself, from the days after World War I when he got his first pilot's license signed by Orville Wright, to the present day, when a plane can fly so high a passenger can see the curve of the Earth.

Steve Wittman, 91, was one of America's most daring and creative aviators for more than 70 years, a renowned designer, builder and barnstorming air racer who was so devoted to flying that both of his homes-in Oshkosh, Wis., and Ocala, Fla.-were along airstrips.

So it was that Wittman died in an airplane, doing what he loved best-flying.

Officials said on Sunday that the bodies of Wittman and his wife, Paula, were found among the wreckage of an airplane that crashed Thursday on Sand Mountain, in northeastern Alabama.

"He was one of the best sorts of legends: the small guy who never worked for a big company but who just loved to fly," said Tom Crouch, the chairman of the aviation department at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., where one of Wittman's planes is displayed. "He really covered all of aviation."

Wittman and his wife left their winter home in Ocala on Thursday in his yellow O-and-O Special, a high-wing two-seat plane he designed and built. They were bound for Oshkosh, where they lived in a house at the airport he managed for 38 years, and which is named for him.

A neighbor in Ocala reported to friends in Oshkosh on Friday that he had not heard from Wittman, who had promised to telephone after he touched down in Wisconsin.

Search teams converged on Sand Mountain after officials received reports from several people who said they heard a crash in the vicinity.

Meanwhile, several hundred pilots from the Experimental Aircraft Association, which Wittman helped found in 1953, flew along Wittman's route, said the group's spokesman, John Burton.

The first pieces of the wreckage were found shortly before dusk Saturday, said Jackson County Sheriff Mike Wells, while the rest was found spread over 3 miles of the rugged mountains Sunday. Wittman's body was found about 50 yards from the fuselage; his wife's body was still in it.

"Debris is everywhere," Wells said from a command post on the mountain.

The Federal Aviation Administration was on the scene to investigate the crash. Wells and others said it appeared that the small plane tore apart in flight. The wings were off the fuselage and spread far apart, as were clothing and additional plane parts.

"Maybe he had some kind of physical problem that caused a loss of control," Paul Poberezny, one of Wittman's closest friends in Wisconsin, said from the crash site, where he had flown early Sunday. "But that was a very well-built aircraft. We just don't know."

Wittman, in fact, was a remarkably vital 91 years old, according to friends, and they knew of no health condition that made flying a risk. Wittman flew regularly and he had taught his wife, who was 56, to fly about a year ago, the friends said.

Flying, they said, was all he cared about. His first goal was to become an aeronautical engineer; he thought problems in one eye would make flying impossible, however.

But he learned to fly shortly after World War I and bought his first plane in 1924. Soon after, he was barnstorming across Wisconsin, selling rides at county fairs and flying exhibitions.

His daring and fondness for speed earned him a reputation that placed him alongside such great U.S. aviators as Jimmy Doolittle and Roscoe Turner. He also flew with them.

His racing career stretched from 1926 to 1984, and he was at his peak during racing's so-called golden age, in the 1930s, according to Crouch and other pilots.

At the same time, he was designing and building planes-sport aircraft and race planes that earned him several key aeronautic patents. Burton said that Wittman adapted to all the changes in aviation and that several of his innovations remained important.

"As a designer and builder, he was extremely influential," Burton said. "He was sought out by anybody who was going to own or build an airplane. But it was in racing where he really got his popular recognition. He was a really great racer."

Wittman was manager of the Winnebago County Airport in Wisconsin from 1931 to 1969. He was honored in his retirement when officials renamed the airport Wittman Field.